


Apollo's Travesty

by Deanismysavior



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 03:54:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7343752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deanismysavior/pseuds/Deanismysavior
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Apollo has the worst day of his life when the pegasi that pull his sun chariot go missing. Now he has to talk to everyone in Olympus and investigate what happened to them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Apollo's Travesty

Apollo’s Travesty  


By: Me, Apollo  


Today was rough. Don’t even get me started on how rough it was. I mean, I’ve been through some things before, but never in my life have I experienced something like that. Now I know what you’re thinking, “Oh Apollo, you’re just being dramatic!” but I swear to you this was THE. WORST. DAY. EVER.  


Where do I even begin? I guess I’ll start with when I woke up. At first it was like any other day, I got up just as the evening air was beginning to thin out so that I could haul that unfortunate chariot across the sky again so that you know, all those mortals could actually experience some sunlight, but don’t thank me or anything. So I got to my chariot and what did I discover? My pegasuses? Is that the word? Or is it pegasi? Whatever, those winged horse animals that are supposed to pull the chariot for me were gone!  


No doubt Poseidon was behind it. I mean I know my comment at dinner last night was less than...professional, yeah, let’s put it that way, but honestly, he’s overreacting! I just didn’t think that he was all that good at beach volleyball! I mean, I’m totally better! And I know I let it get too far, I shouldn’t have tried to push him or have told Zeus to shut up when he came between us (that lightning burn isn’t gonna go away for at least a good month), but he was being childish! He should have told me I was better and left it at that. I mean, it’s not like I was asking for that much, just the simple truth. Now I can’t drive my stupid sun chariot. Good luck being worshipped in the dark, sea god!  


So I went over to him to find out what gives. He of course tells me that he doesn’t know what I’m talking about and he seems to actually be acting nice??? He already forgave last night’s incident? I mean I know he’s supposed to be lowkey, chill, kind of a bro, but I’m not buying it. I mean, even I’d probably still be mad at me. Although, who could stay mad at a handsome face like this? Anyway, back to that lying… I’ve got nothing in the way of good insults at the moment. What can I call him? A stinking fish? It seems a little unoriginal, but this whole situation was smelling a little fishy (hah, did you see what I did there? I’ll hold for applause).  


So next I go to Zeus, yeah I know, not my first choice either, but I figure he’d probably know who was at the bottom of all this, he does look over all of Olympus after all. Lucky me I got to be lectured for an _eternity_. That’s not an exaggeration.  


He was all like blah, blah, blah, “responsibility”. Blah, blah, blah, “you should be more mature”. Blah, blah, blah “apologize.” It was so _**boring**_. Needless to say, I couldn’t even get a word in edgewise. You wouldn’t think that the stoic lord of the clouds would be much of a talker, but you’ve never seen him when he’s angry. Especially at his “delinquent” son. I still think that’s a bit harsh. So I guess onto the next?  


Well if the King of Olympus couldn’t answer my question, then I suppose the Queen is my next best bet. So I go to seek out Hera. Except for one little problem; she pretty much hates me. She hates any child of Zeus that isn’t hers really. So just as I expected, our meeting was a cakewalk. And by cakewalk I mean total disaster. The second I walked into the room, I could feel it drop 10 degrees, at least. I mean, her eyes are enough to give you hypothermia when she’s staring you down. So of course, I try to be as polite as I can be. I walk up to her with extended arms and cry “Mother!” (you know, out of formality), going in for a hug. She did not like that. Probably shouldn’t have drawn more attention to the fact that she wasn’t actually my mother.  


“Are you mocking me?” she had said, whipping her head around to face me.  


“No, of course not,” I had replied, trying to laugh it off, but also silently cursing myself. _Stupid Apollo. You shouldn’t have done that._ “Anyway, Hera, my Queen, I was wondering if you knew anything about what happened to my pegasi.”  


“Why would I waste my time with the matters of the comings and goings of your pegasi?” She had huffed. She gave me one of those grueling “I’m annoyed at you” classic Hera looks.  


“Well I just thought you know since you sort of oversee everything along with Zeus that maybe you saw something or somebody talked to you about it. But hey, sorry for asking.”  


“Sorry to disappoint,” She turned and she walked right out. It was her own room and she just walked right out. So that was a great experience. So glad I did that. If she didn’t hate me before, I’m pretty certain she does now. She has a great way of getting me to embarrass myself.  


Well who else can I ask? Aphrodite, maybe. I know she and Poseidon had a thing way back in the day. Maybe she’d be willing to let me know what was going on if he was involved. So I went to go speak with her, hoping that maybe after all of that grilling by the godly parents that I might be shown some love. Boy was I right.  


I found her near the river where all the forest nymphs were gathered around her, doting on her per usual. She was laughing and whispering little secrets in their ears. How she has them wrapped around her finger, I will never understand. She looked up from her giggling posse and called out my name “Apollo!” as if I were some celebrity, which, let’s face it, I am. I’m not really used to getting this treatment from Aphrodite. I mean, she’s always been fine towards me, but she’s one of those people who tends to be more focused on herself (although, I’m not quite sure how when I’m in the room). So as you may expect, I was a little shocked that she showed me any attention at all.  


“Aphrodite…” my voice had given way to discomfort. I really never interacted much with her outside of Olympus parties, but now it seemed that I had her full attention.  


“My dear,” she patted the seat next to her, “come, sit!” Now I know what you’re thinking, this was a bad call on my part, but what could I do? I needed to get information and if it meant being put in an awkward position, well, I’d already been in three that day, so what did I have to lose?  


I sat next to her, and as soon as I did, her fingers were in my hair. I mean, you wouldn’t think I’m a prude, but I’m not into it when people are touching me without my consent. It’s not kosher. Aphrodite doesn’t really understand that concept. She’s so used to everyone falling all over her that the word “no” is foreign to her.  


“Look,” I had said, shoving her hand back to her lap where it belonged, “I came here to ask you about something that happened.”  


“And what’s that darling?”  


“Well if you haven’t noticed, the sun isn’t in the sky, don’t you think it’s a little late in the day for that?”  


“Hmm,” her brow furrowed and she bit her lip in a concerned fashion, “I hadn’t really noticed. Silly me. You know how it is, you get distracted and you lose track of things.”  


“Sure…” my voice had trailed off at this point. I could see this wasn’t getting very far. “Anyway, when I went to go do my daily run in the sun chariot, I saw that my pegasi were missing. I thought it might have been Poseidon that took them because of what happened at dinner last night, but he claims he doesn’t know anything. I was hoping that you might know if he had anything to do with this or if you saw anyone with my pegasi in the past few hours.”  


“Poseidon and I haven’t talked in quite a while, I mean not really anyway. We only ever had that one fling and after that, nothing. Things just got tense, especially around Hephaestus. But if I do recall correctly, I might have seen Ares around the stable yesterday.”  


“Thank you! See, that’s the kind of intel I was actually hoping for from the others.” I had been so relieved and then this happened:  


“Oh Apollo, you should stick around,” her voice was edged with a suggestive tone. By now, all the nymphs had left and she was completely alone beside the river. Well, this went a little differently than I had planned.  


“Uh… rain check? I really have to go right now, my winged horses need me!”  


“Oh, boo,” she had said, waving me off.  


Well that was uncomfortable. So now I needed to find Ares. What a treat. It’s not like he hates me or anything. *rolls eyes.* Things with Ares have always been rough. Aside from him being the war god, he’s also a total pain in my ass. He gets angry over every little thing and every single comment I make to the guy gets taken the wrong way. He’s just a giant, muscular, scary baby. One that I really did **NOT** want to deal with at the current moment.  


Ares. What a guy he was. When I found him, he was lifting weights in Olympus’s gym. Yes, we have a gym. I have no idea why, I mean as I’ve said before, we gods can turn into any version of ourselves that we want to be and so I’ve never found a reason to actually work out, I just wish for muscles and poof, they appear. Maybe there’s some sort of pleasure he gets in showing off? I don’t know, I wouldn’t know anything about that sort of thing. Anyway, he was happy to see me as always. By happy, I mean completely not happy.  


“Apollo” he had grumbled my name as if he wanted to be rid of it as quickly as possible. I mean who spit in his coffee this morning, am I right? Oh wait, that was me, almost every day, but that’s beside the point. Looking me up and down, he finally asked “What do you want?”  


“Well hello to you too Ares,” I had made my best effort to sound polite, but it just ended up sounding snarky (not my fault). “It seems that I have a bit of a situation. My pegasi are missing and Aphrodite told me that you were by the stables yesterday.”  


The bitter edge in his voice had completely escaped him and was replaced by a much different, much warmer, much scarier tone.“Yeah, I was. I was feeding them some leftover carrots from the salad I had for lunch. What can I say? I like to see them munching away, so cute.” His eyes had grown wide with excitement at talking about them. Creepy.  


My brain wasn’t quite sure I’d heard any of that right. Ares, the toughest, meanest god in all of Olympus had a soft spot for winged ponies. Check that off of the “Did Not Expect to Be True” List. Not to mention that he said he had eaten a salad for lunch. The way that guy looks (all barrel-chested and half-viking, half-overgrown gorilla) you’d think he’d eat the heart of a bear raw, not minding that the blood would be dripping down his chin.  


“Right, well I was just wondering if maybe you’d seen where they went off to because it’s really important that I get the sun chariot up there in the sky,” I said, at this point I had gotten impatient. I mean, come on, half the day had gone by and so far this was a wild goose chase.  


“No, I’m sorry, the last time I saw them I locked the stables behind me. Let me know if you find them, it’s such terrible news they’re missing.” He looked genuinely sad. I mean dude, they’re just glorified horses, and they’re not even your glorified horses. I’ve seen the war god go into battle and lose some of his closest comrades and never shed a tear, but now he looked about ready to break down because of a couple pegasi.  


“Okay, well, I’ll get on that,” I had walked away, even more weirded out than before. I think I’m still going to have nightmares about macho-man Ares drinking kale smoothies and going to heated yoga classes.  


As I had exited the gym, I checked the time on the big clock in the middle of the square and I realized that the lunch feast would begin in five minutes. Perfect, now maybe I might finally be able to find out who took my pegasi. All of the Olympians would be together in one place, so it would be easier to get through each one.  


As I had entered the hall, I was a little bit put off that no one acknowledged my presence, especially after a grand entrance like that. I mean, normally I’m in the spotlight, and when I’m not, I should be. Honestly, I was a little offended that they didn’t stop everything they were doing right then and there to come talk to me. Oh well, I guess I would actually have to put in some effort into this. :(  


My eyes had scanned the congregation of Olympians. There was a whole slew of gods, goddesses, nymphs, satyrs, and all other sorts of comrades to Olympus. Finally my sight had rested on my buddy Hermes. The messenger god! How could I have not thought of it before? He had scouts everywhere, at least one of them must have noticed where those darn pegasi had gone.  


“Hermes! My man! What’s going on?” I had given him my best bro greeting I had in my artillery after my tiresome day. I mean, what more could you expect from a guy who had spent all morning in insufferable conversations with the rest of his family.  


“Oh Apollo, hello. I just got back from my morning run. Travelling to 196 countries in just 2 hours is no easy task, and I have to make the trip twice, daily. How about you, you seem a little more tense than usual.”  


Gods bless Hermes and his jittery self. Finally somebody actually pays attention to _**my**_ feelings, you know, the important ones. “Honestly Hermes, it’s been really hard. I was just going to perform my morning routine, like any other day, which is already tedious enough, but then a total _**travesty**_ happened. I realized my pegasi were missing and now I can’t pull the chariot across the sky.” I had let my face sink into my mastered sullen and pouty expression for effect.  


“Well I just received reports from my scouts this morning and they didn’t say anything about it, I’m sorry, I wish I could be a bigger help to you.” What a guy. Out of all of them, he was the only one that actually had looked genuinely concerned for me. He understood what a tough time I was having. For a totally geeky looking dude, he wasn’t half bad.  


Okay, well who was left to ask? Hades? He generally didn’t show up for Olympian events. He wasn’t much of a socialite. I never really understood the guy honestly, but I never had anything against him. Hephaestus? It looked like he was currently getting drunk with Dionysus and neither of them could hold their liquor very well so I doubted that I would be able to get anything logical out of them, as if they could even follow a normal conversation in that state. Demeter? She might be the only person in Olympus to hate me more than Hera. Long story short, I had… relations… with one of her daughters and she was _**not**_ happy about that. Anyway, lots of tension there. Probably better if I didn’t go too in depth into it. That just left one person…  


“Sister!” I had approached her with a warm smile and sat down at the otherwise vacant table. I was used to her generally cold demeanor by now, so I was shocked when I saw the flicker of an upturned corner of her mouth. It was so brief that I was sure I had imagined it.  


“Brother, how nice of you to show up,” she had said cooly. You would think that being my twin sister, Artemis and I would be more alike, but there were very few things we actually had in common, at least from the outside. Where I may generally amiable and goofy and dare I say likeable, Artemis was short with people often, serious, and liked to avoid human interaction as much as possible. I think I might have been the only person she’d said more than two words to at a time. It was rare that she ever opened up to me, let alone anyone else. She was extremely private. Seeing her there at the feast was a big step for her. She didn’t really frequent them either.  


“Hey sis, so I was wondering, you know, if you’d heard what’s been going on.”  


“Well, I mean, the sun’s not out, so I assume you screwed up again. How can I save your ass again?”  


“Hey, hey, that’s not fair. This time it wasn’t my fault.”  


She had rolled her eyes at me. At _**me**_. Lord Apollo. Although I suppose that doesn’t mean much when you’re siblings. Still, the disrespect was real.  


“For your information, _Artemis_ , my pegasi are missing and I had _nothing_ to do with it. I was _wondering_ if you knew anything about it.”  


She looked up at me nonchalantly, shoving a forkful of pasta salad into her face, and replied, “No, but I’m sure they do,” and gestured out toward the large wall of windows that overlooked the Olympian terrace. Sure enough, right before my eyes were the pegasi I had spent all morning trying to find. And who was riding them but Will Solace and Nico di Angelo.  


I tried to be mad, I really did. I had shoved myself up from where I had been sitting across from Artemis and stormed outside to find out what exactly was going on, but when I reached them, I stopped in my tracks. I heard a sound from them, almost as sweet as my own voice. Their laughter echoed over the rolling hills. They both held Nerf Super Soakers in their hands and were waving them around wildly. Suddenly, a stream of cool, clear water shot across the sky, directly into Nico’s face.  


“I’ll get you, you jerk!” I had heard him holler, an awful grin of revenge spread wickedly across his face.  


“Go ahead and try,” Will had taunted back. Now that was my son.  


Despite myself, despite all of the trials and toiling I had gone through that day, I couldn’t help but to feel an overwhelming sense of joy at seeing what was unfolding before me. At first when I had found out that Will was dating Nico, I was a little skeptical. The kid seemed weird and a little scary (sorry Nico, it’s true), but seeing how happy he made Will, how could a father not be glad for his son?  


I had decided the sky could wait. What was one day without the sun anyway? I had stretched myself out on the soft grass of the terrace, looking up and watching. As a god, it wasn’t often that I actually got to see my son, so I relished in the moment. Okay, I’ll admit, maybe today wasn’t _**that**_ awful.


End file.
